I ended up paying for laser engraving for my Framework Laptop 16 with RGB US English keyboard, and it worked great: Сyrillic (Russian + Ukrainian) lazer engraving on RGB US English keyboard - #2 by ratijas
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This is really a very silly argument. Use of Russian language has little to do with ongoing geopolitics and even so, boycotting a specific keyboard layout for political reason doesn’t make any sense and can only be counterproductive. In the case of Frame.work, it means that we are penalising Russian speakers outside of Russia, so likely those who are on your side from a political perspective…
Politics is very important, but it should not be mixed with everything and going against basic freedom.
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My geography isn’t great. Which countries on the currently shipped to countries need a Cyrillic keyboard?
I generally touch type without needing to look at the keyboard, so to me what is written on the keys does not really matter. I just feel for the divert to know where my index fingers rest at.
It’s not about any specific country. People can and do move elsewhere, in great numbers. But learning and replacing the language you first learned, and may have spent many years of your life with, can be hard and takes time. And not everyone wishes to, or can completely move away. So Cyrillic is needed anywhere users of it have spread to. Which I think is most everywhere, to some extent.
A quick google suggests there may be a million in USA, where Framework is based. Looks like Russia accounts for only half of those that use Cyrillic. Cyrillic script - Wikipedia. 250 million in Eurasia. For comparison, Framework currently sells a Danish keyboard, only 6 million Danish speakers. But I don’t think Framework currently ships to anywhere that has Cyrillic as their official state language, and that I would imagine is why they don’t yet sell a Cyrillic keyboard. The assumption being, not that there isn’t need, but that in countries which Framework ships to, Cyrillic users can hopefully can make do without it.
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If you read the linked Wikipedia entry, it says Cyrrilic started in Bulgaria. Framework does deliver to Bulgaria.
(A Bulgarian keyboard might not satisfy. The alphabets of languages written in Cyrillic do differ, so I imagine the keyboards do also, much as keyboards for latin script languages do.)
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My guess is it is just an oversight by FW.
For example, they ship FW to Bulgaria, but don’t have a Bulgarian keyboard.
+1 for US/RU keyboard option. Engraving is not an option in Ireland, unfortunately.
I also would like this option. My previous laptop was a MacBook air with an RU/US keyboard. I needed it because I was serving in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan where I learned Kyrgyz. The Kyrgyz language uses the Cyrillic alphabet, and that laptop came in handy.
Now I’m serving in the Peace Corps in Moldova, and have a Framework 13. Russian is very prevalent here. It’s a recognized minority language too. I keep finding that I need to type in Cyrillic.
There’s a decent chance I’ll be in Georgia later this year for the Peace Corps. And again, I’ll be somewhere where Russian is common.
Is there a reason a Russian keyboard isn’t an option? Is it political or financial? Is there perhaps not a big enough market for Framework to offer a Russian variant?
In addition to Russian, many other languages use the Cyrillic alphabet. When I was in Kyrgyzstan, despite Kyrgyz and Russian using different variants of the Cyrillic alphabet, I just needed to learn a couple key combinations to type in Kyrgyz for the extra letters Kyrgyz has. I suspect that most people whose language uses Cyrillic do the same thing, and get by just fine with a Russian keyboard.
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